Home Download the-Automator Spy: AutoHotkey v2 Window Spy That Flags Admin Windows

the-Automator Spy: AutoHotkey v2 Window Spy That Flags Admin Windows

You hover a window with the built-in Window Spy, copy the title, and your script still can’t find it. Sound familiar?

Usually it’s something you can’t see: a weird character in the title, or a program running as admin.

How about you? Ever lost an hour to a window that just wouldn’t match?

the-Automator Spy is our AutoHotkey v2 replacement for Window Spy. It shows more, and it warns you about the stuff that trips scripts up. 😊

the-Automator Spy window showing positions, window title, control text and status bar

Video: the-Automator Spy intro
Watch it in action on YouTube

Freeze, Click, Copy Coordinates

Hover what you care about and press Right Ctrl. The Spy freezes on it, so you can move into the Spy window without losing your target.

The positions table shows seven rows: mouse, window and control, each relative to the screen, window or client area.

Click a row and the coordinates land on your clipboard. Hold Shift to add the next point instead of replacing it.

Click the title label to copy the ahk_id and ahk_pid. Search boxes filter the control text, visible text and all text panes.

Admin Windows and Unicode Titles Flagged

These are the things that cost me the most time, so the Spy points them out:

  • Admin mode: if the target runs as admin, the Spy offers to restart itself elevated so it can read the window
  • Unicode highlighting: non-ASCII characters in the title get highlighted, so a sneaky character can’t fool you
  • Status bar: program bitness, a Win32 Control flag, monitor DPI and the pixel color under the mouse
New in 1.4.0: Inspect Strategy. Click the button and the Spy looks at the window’s framework (WPF, Chromium, Electron, Office, WinForms and more).

It then ranks which approach should work best: Win32 ControlSend, UIA, MSAA, COM, image search or OCR.

Your Hotkeys, Your Theme

The Preferences window opens on first launch. Rebind freeze (Right Ctrl), Show Spy (Ctrl+Shift+W) and Bring Program to Mouse (Ctrl+Shift+M).

Dark theme is the default, with a checkbox to switch back to light.

What’s in the Download

  • the-Automator Spy.exe: ready to run, no AutoHotkey needed
  • the-Automator Spy.ahk: the AutoHotkey v2 source, version 1.4.0
  • lib folder: UIA, RichEdit, Triggers and the other libraries it needs
  • docs folder: a user guide in HTML and PDF
Requirements: Windows. The exe runs on its own.

To run the source instead, you need AutoHotkey v2.0 (the script is pinned below 2.1). Keep the lib and res folders next to it.

Get the-Automator Spy

the-Automator Spy is $19.99. You get the exe and the full v2 source, so you can see exactly how it works.

One thing I’ve learned: most “my script can’t find the window” problems are really “I couldn’t see what was there” problems.

So give yourself better eyes before you rewrite the script. ⚡

Joe

Comments are closed.